


Ridged

by TerresDeBrume



Series: Dots Verse [6]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blind Character, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-07
Updated: 2012-07-07
Packaged: 2017-11-09 08:45:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/453584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerresDeBrume/pseuds/TerresDeBrume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"How would you feel about me getting a tattoo?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ridged

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to JadeMushroom, who commented on _Dots_ and gave me the idea for this :)

“How would you feel about me getting a tattoo?”

 

Loki raises an eyebrow and closes the book he’s currently reading as he turns toward Tony. It’s a calm afternoon of September, and Tony has just come home from his day in class –his last year before he can finally start his professional life. In fact, he hasn’t even taken the time to greet Loki before he asked the question, and the latter decides to keep silent as a fairly petty retribution.

Tony understands the matter quite quickly though, for they like bickering about it, and his nose feels cold from rain when he kisses Loki’s lips.

 

“You smell like a swimming pool,” Loki tells him.

“I just came out of one,” Tony says. “Steve and Pepper popped up after my last class to invite me, and you said you’d be at the vet most of the day so…” He shrugs and sits on the couch next to Loki, a hand coming to rest at the small of his back. “How’s Fenrir doing?”

“Fine, fine,” Loki answers, still relieved that the bi-annual checkup didn’t reveal anything wrong with his dog.

“Good,” Tony says, and his thumb moves up and under Loki’s T-Shirt, rubbing circles of heat over his spine. “So, how would you feel about me getting a tattoo?”

“You… do realize that I’m blind, right?” Loki asks.

 

It’s not that he doesn’t have an opinion on tattoos, quite the contrary –he still remembers Tony’s startled laugh when he discovered the green sphere Loki tattooed on his spine, right below his t-shirts neckline. He got it when he turned eighteen, after years and years of longing and thinking, and he still misses being able to see it on pictures sometimes.

So all in all, Loki knows he doesn’t mind tattoos, quite the opposite, and if Tony wants one, well, he’s nothing to say against that. But the thing is, he really didn’t expect to be asked for advice. If anything, he would have thought Tony would mention it in passing –oh, by the way, I got tattooed. The fact that he is actually asking for Loki’s opinion beforehand is both surprising and delighting, the sign of something deep linking them together.

It makes Loki’s heart beat faster.

 

“Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean I can’t take your opinion into account,” Tony says, and Loki feels the couch shift with his shrug, the burning trace of his thumb over his waist. “In fact,  _especially_ because you can’t see it. I don’t want you to feel like I’m leaving you out, or your opinion doesn’t matter. And if you don’t want me to get inked, I don’t have to be.”

“…What were you thinking about?”

“Braille,” Tony says immediately, and even that sends waves of affection straight to Loki’s heart. “I want to get the visuals for I L U because –okay, don’t laugh but… I used to draw them. On my notebooks. When I was pinning on you like a schoolgirl.”

 

Loki can imagine him, still hears the scratch of his pen, smells his shampoo and cologne drifting to his nostrils through the cloud of dust and old wood pervading the classroom he used to teach in. He can picture Tony in his mind, nearly three years younger and talking in loud whispers and a semi-permanent sarcastic tone. Loki remembers the sound of his sneakers as he beat them against the ground in a rhythm he was the only one to hear. Loki remembers wondering what it was that had Tony scratch away for hours on end, even when there wasn’t that much notes to take, and the sudden knowledge that it was all for him makes butterflies burst in his stomach.

 

“Hey,” Tony protests, “I said no lau—”

 

Loki kisses him before he can finish his sentence, and it’s playful and loving at the same time, his nose brushing against Tony’s cheek, his hands tangling in the brand new cotton of his partner’s shirt.

 

“You should get it on your wrist,” Loki says after. “The right one.”

 

He wants the tattoo to be visible. He wants people who shake Tony’s arm to see it and know that there is history behind it. He want the dots to attract people’s eyes on press photos and make them wonder, let them know that he, Loki Odinson, has something special going on with Tony Stark. He wants the world to see this tattoo… but only half as much as he wants  _Tony_ to see it.

Loki wants the tattoo to flash before Tony’s eyes when he yawns, when he sneezes and looks at his hands after, and when he bites the tip of his pen. He wants tony to see the ink when he washes his hands after an afternoon at the garage and when he tries to cook, when he turns a page on his textbook, when he offers his card to clients, when he masturbates in the shower while Loki is away….

 

Loki is pretty much in love with this idea already.

 

“Do I want to know why?” Tony asks, but then his hands wander downward to palm Loki’s buttocks through his underwear, and he sighs: “Nevermind.”

 

Loki chuckles and leans back against the cushion of the couch, feeling stupidly content with the world.

 

{ooo}

 

It takes a while before Tony does anything. At first he’s just busy with work, and then there’s some kind of problem with his appointment –he says something about buses being late and the shop closing or something, Loki isn’t really sure. All he knows is that he really wants tony to get his tattoo and on the evening of the failed attempt, he feels frustrated beyond reason.

 

“Seriously,” Thor calls from over his bar, “Stop fidgeting like that, you’re ruining your suit and we’ll have to leave in five minutes if we don’t want to be late for your signing.”

“I  _know_ ”Loki hisses, and he can hear Thor’s light footsteps come toward him.

 

He’s always been surprised at how silent Thor can be when he wants to. Some people go barefoot and make as much noise as a small elephant, but Thor has managed to sneak up on him with security shoes, and those weight a lot. Loki blames the ability for silence on his military experience, and the fact that silence rarely happens on Thor’s will to be localizable in all circumstances –Loki bitches a lot about his brother, and he’s got a number of things he hates about him, but uncaring isn’t one of the words he’d apply to Thor, ever.

 

“You  _are_ aware that he didn’t change his mind, right?”

“Shut up,” Loki says, and he feels Thor’s bear paw settle on his shoulder as his brother sighs.

“All right, I’ll shut up,” he says, “and then I’ll laugh at you when he finally gets it. Now get up, or we’ll be late and Heimdall will lengthen your tour again.”

 

Loki growls, because neither Odin nor Thor hold the monopole for inarticulate sounds, but he still follows his brother out of Ginnungagap and into his wagon with minimal fuss, choosing to keep his frustration down for tonight –readers, after all, are going to expect a smiling writer, not a seething cat.

 

{ooo}

 

“Mr. Nicholls,” Heimdall says, “I’d like to introduce you to a great admirer of yours… his name’s Rob.”

 

Loki nods, but he’s recognized Tony already, in the way he shuffles from feet to feet and breathes in a staccato, a muffled chuckle Loki has yet to hear anywhere else. Plus, there’s the familiar smell of old spice and fine bourbon that tell him Tony has something in mind –he usually sticks to whisky, unless he’s haking up some kind of plan.

Loki’s heartbeat picks up, floods his ears and armpits, makes his fingertips shiver as he extends his right hand and says:

 

“Nice to meet you.”

 

Tony says nothing –which is unsurprising- but thrusts his hand a little too far up Loki’s arm, so that his fingers brush against his wrist. Loki goes to readjust their position, when he feels them.

 

Tony’s skin is smooth and unbroken, but there are bumps here that didn’t exist before. It’s a familiar sensation for Loki, something he’s been living with for decades now, and it doesn’t take more than a second to identify the three letters:  _I L U,_ as promised, only better because Loki can actually _read them_.

It’s… he doesn’t know what it is. It’s touching and unexpected and magical, and he feels tears rolling down his cheeks before he can do anything about it, like a dam he didn’t know existed breaking open without warning. Tony panics, asks if he’s okay, apologizes, but Loki doesn’t let go of his wrist, fingers going back and forth over the ridges because he can’t get enough of the tingling they create in his skin.

 

“Hey, I’m sorry,” Tony says, “When the guy told me I could get a rise under the ink I thought you’d like the surprise, I didn’t want to make you cry!”

 

Loki’s tears die quickly, but the smile on his face keeps stretching his face as he hears Heimdall retreating and the low rumble of Thor’s muttering with him. Loki sighs and wipes his eyes dry, before bringing Tony in for a kiss.

(It makes Tony laugh, how Loki is often the one who initiate physical contact, but then again  _he_ doesn’t have the leisure of just watching him.)

 

“It’s alright,” he tells Tony after. “It’s just….”

“Just what?”

“If I’d had any doubts about marrying you before, they’d be gone now.”

 

Loki laughs when he feels Tony’s nose wrinkle with his grin.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and feedback are welcome, either here or at [Tumblr](http://fanfanwrites.tumblr.com/ask) :)


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